Hello everyone,

General:
It seems to have been a much quieter start to the season than usual. As you know, my routine has been upset by my son being with us with a broken leg. He’s got no other base in the UK, so this has meant trips to hospital in Taunton and Bristol at intervals. But it has also meant that my access to the internet has been restricted severely, as Pakistan has been uppermost in his mind. At least, the improvement is showing itself, and hopefully he’ll be out of plaster in thee weeks.

Challenges:
We’ve got into the Challenge routine. When I suggested this in my list of ideas, I felt pleased when Rosemary decided to select it as the first Challenge. When I came to write my entry, I realised that this was a lot harder than I expected. Perhaps you all did, as well. Nevertheless, we don’t want easy challenges – hard challenges toughen us up, and fill in gaps in our writing: at least I find it does. You’ll be receiving the file of submissions for Challenge 1, and the rules for assessing them will be as before, but I’ll quote them again for Celia and anyone who has forgotten them.

You have 6 ‘marks’. You must award these 6 marks to the entries in any way you like, but you must include at least 3 entries. Thus you can choose 4-1-1, 3-2-1, 2-2-2, 3-1-1-1, 2-2-1-1, 2-1-1-1-1, or 1-1-1-1-1-1, depending on how well you can separate them. You can add comments on how you judged them if you wish, but that is not compulsory. All judges’ marks and comments will be circulated anonymously in a file with the final marks.

Sue’s challenge will undoubtedly produce some good inventive replies, some interesting ones, no doubt! I will look forward to reading them.

Publication - The Link:
Christine will send you the Log, but in it you will see that an article of hers has been published in a magazine called ‘The Link’ which is the magazine that circulates among Writers’ Groups. The article describes how the Log is important to Alpha, emphasizing differences between us and a normal socially-meeting writers’ group.

I subscribe to this magazine which is published in alternate months. It’s only a small magazine containing short articles, but I always enjoy looking through it. They include odd little points and titbits, some interesting and some rather trite. What has crossed my mind, however, is that from time to time we have interesting little discussions about such things as the difference between ‘O’ and ‘Oh’ which would make a one page contribution – around 400 or so words. We’ve also had a few exchanges about prologues, and about superfluous repetitions in statements. And what about my question regarding the ethics of deliberately writing a competition story in an actual emotional environment in order to improve its chances?

Now that we have established that a non-member can get an article published, I don’t see why we shouldn’t try to have a page in every issue for a year. But to do this, I would like different members to write the 400-word description, although they would refer to contributions by John, Sue, Zena or whoever by first names as we do in our own correspondence.

The point is that they don’t have a great number of submissions for the publication, and it does no harm to get even a short article published in a limited circulation (between 250 and 500, I think) magazine.

Well, what do you think?

Note: If anyone wants to subscribe to The Link, it costs about £15 a year (the new subscription year starts with the February issue, so I don’t know if it’ll change).

Correspondence:
I’ve received notices about various festivals/competitions:

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Bedford Open Poetry Competition

50 lines max. First prize £300 Entry £3

No website quoted.

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Spikethecat Ltd - Short story competitions

“Someone Has to Die” (murder, mystery, suspense), Entry £3

Max length 2,500 words, First prize £100. Closing date 30 November

“Adventures in Time and Space” –(science fiction) Entry £3

Max length 2,500 words, First prize £100. Closing date 31 December

“Secrets and Spies” (Spy stories). Entry £3

Max length 2,500 words. First prize £100. Closing date 31 January 2010

See website www.spikethecat.co.uk

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Charities (with a literature connection):
I don’t really want to suggest that you give to a charity – I get inundated with requests. But I thought you might like to hear about two of them.

The first is www.thebookbus.org which operates in Zambia, and my niece has just returned from spending two weeks there. It’s an interesting project, and you might like to see the website.

The second concerns voluntary service with Saga. Yes, I expect you thought that Voluntary service was all about gap year, and graduates who couldn’t get jobs. But if you’re well into your sixties and fit, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t do a short spell. This morning I arranged for a lecture from one such person who spent a month in Khatmandu teaching English. It was clearly a fascinating experience, and if she were a writer, she could certainly sell some articles on the basis of her experience. Does that give any of you an idea?

Coincidences:
Just a little bit of personal information. As you will know, my son is project engineer for the new airport (ground works etc) in Islamabad, although he is here in Somerset at the moment with a broken leg. He’s still working full-time, thanks to modern communication.

Robbie, the editor of our Village News – with whom I have close links – went for a holiday in China, which involved amongst other things, a cruise down the Yangtse river. On board this boat, they shared a table with another couple. After the usual sort of fact-finding discussion, Robbie discovered that they were living in Pakistan, and they were working on the same project as my son – in fact the man was his second-in-command!

The trouble is that this sort of thing can only be a news item: you can never weave a satisfactory story out of a coincidence, as people will say that things don’t happen that way.

Finally:
Hallowe’en is almost upon us, and I have chosen this as my theme for the issue that comes out at the end of October. There’s a little bit of information which I discovered which you might like to know.

Hallowe’en is a curious celebration. So it set me wondering: what is the background to Hallowe’en?

There are lots of ideas often quoted as fact, but most of these can be undermined by other evidence. There was a Celtic festival called Samhain (the Celts pronounced it ‘sow-in’), with a ceremony to guard against supernatural forces. The Celts regarded Samhain as the night the old year died and the earth grew cold. The living would gather round bonfires dressed in animals’ heads tell each others’ fortunes and throw animal bones on to the fire to scare away the spirits. They would take away embers from the fire to keep heir own houses warm. The word ‘bonfire’ is actually derived from ‘bone-fire’.

I’ll bet you didn’t know the origin of ‘bonfire’.

That’s all this time. Keep the thoughts and ideas flowing.

Best wishes all

- Olaf